2006 RV - Doug & Crystal

Captain George's Seafood Restaurant offers a nautical atmosphere with distinctive features such as seascape murals, fountains and decorative glass, and there's even half of a ship connected to the front of the Virginia Beach location. This seafood restaurant was started by a Virginia couple in 1978, and grew to include three other restaurants in Virginia and the newest one in Myrtle Beach. Captain George's Seafood Restaurant features its world-famous "all-you-can-eat" seafood buffet with over 70 items including Alaskan snow crab legs, fresh broiled fish, steamed shrimp, prime cut beef and delicious desserts.

This is my plate. This is my first plate. I had soft crab, scallops, shrimp, mahogany clams, and CRABBBBBBB LEGGGGGGS, Ooooh! Oh, you should be glad this page does not have sound. I refuse to discuss the amount of plates or refills I had. With a personal email to me requesting, I will let you know how many plates and refills Doug had. 

This is little Ebony, she is 6 and in kindergarten. Doug and I visited with both Ebony and Caleb here in Virginia Beach. Isn't she beautiful? YES. I tend to answer my own questions. We had so much fun together. On Friday we went out for pizza......why when you ask kids where they would like to go and eat.....they say things like McDonalds? Pizza? Chucky Cheeze? If I were a kid and some one asked me where I would want to eat.......Uh, how about Le Cirque, Letuce or The Rainbow Room @ Rockefellow Plaza? Well they wanted pizza and we honored their request.

This is Caleb, he likes to clown, and he's pretty handsome too. So on Saturday we went to the Virginia Beach Aquarium, then went to the Naval station to look at submarines and Navy vessels, and toured around the entire Naval Base. Then on Sunday we went to church on post and had a very uplifting time, very good message for chaplain, he was on fire. After church we went to the Zoo. Had lost of fun 

The African elephant is the largest land animal in the world. They can grow to 29-24 feet long, and can reach heights of 11 feet tall while weighing 5-7 tons. The females are smaller than the males and have smaller tusks. The African elephant is characterized by its brownish-grey color, large flat ears, tusks (which can vary in length) and a trunk with two finger-like tips at the end. The diet of African elephants is comprised of bark, fruit, grass and leaves. At times they may topple trees completely over just to feed on them. They drink 50 gallons of water a day. They are very adaptable, but they prefer areas providing grass and leafy vegetation and clean drinking water.

The Masai Giraffe is a herding animal and lives in the Savanna. They are native to most of Africa, south of the Sahara. Tallest of all mammals, male giraffe attain an overall height of 18 feet with the female at 16 feet. Both male and female have the same size legs. They have a short body for an animal of this size and very long legs and neck. Its long neck contains only the seven vertebrae typical of most mammals. The tail is tufted and there is a short mane on the neck. The tongue can be 17 -inches long. Giraffe also have short bony horns that are covered with hair and skin.

Lions are found in the sub-Saharan region of Africa in savannas, grasslands, dense bush and woodlands. Lions are the most powerful African predator and largest of Africa’s cat family. Males are five and a half to eight feet long and can weigh 330 to 528 pounds. Females weigh 260 to 400 pounds and are just over six feet long. The young have rosettes and spots, which disappear as the animal matures. Males have manes, of which size and color varies on each lion. The female lion has a white beard and white whiskers. The backs of their ears are black and their tails end with a tuft of black hair.
The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), our national bird is the only eagle unique to North America. The bald eagle's scientific name signifies a sea (halo) eagle (aeetos) with a white (leukos) head. At one time, the word bald, meant white, not hairless. Bald eagles are found in most of North America, from Alaska and Canada to northern Mexico. About half of the world's 70,000 bald eagles live in Alaska. Combined with British Columbia's population of about 20,000, the northwest coast of North America is by far their greatest stronghold for bald eagles. They flourish here in part because of the salmon. Dead or dying fish are an important food source for all bald eagles. 

The main exhibit gallery moves the visitor through time, starting in 1940 with the conception of the U.S. Army Parachute Test Platoon and ending with today's airborne and special operations units. Much has changed in the world since the battles of World War II and the conflicts of the Cold War era, but the courage and dedication of the American soldier is a common bond that ties each generation together. Please click on each exhibit title below to see more about that exhibit.

The command center for the museum volunteers, the Information Desk is the first stop for visitors. Behind the desk is the museum logo, designed by Tony Sims, a paratrooper.
The lobby exhibit is accented by natural light from the glass walls and surrounding high mounted windows. The lobby exhibit features two fully deployed parachutes, a WWII era T-5 round chute and a modern MC-4 square chute. The round parachute represents the origins of airborne forces, and the integration of airborne forces into conventional warfare. The square parachute represents the cutting edge of modern special operations, and the unconventional warfare they continue to engage in.


Displayed together, these parachutes represent the development of airborne infiltration, and the soldiers who work in support of one another in the combined airborne and special operations community.
Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door.



How'd he get on the ground so quick?  

In December 1944, during the siege of Bastogne, Belgium, McAuliffe was acting commander of the 101st in Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor’s absence. The Americans had been holding the Belgian town "at all costs," and on Dec. 22, Gen. McAuliffe received the encouraging news that the 4th Armored Division was beginning its drive north to relieve the 101st. Later that morning, members of the division’s glider regiment saw four Germans coming up the road carrying a white flag. Everyone hoped they were offering surrender. Instead, they presented two pages demanding the Americans’ surrender: "To the USA Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne. . .There is only one possibility. . .the honorable surrender of the encircled town. "McAuliffe glanced at the message and said, "Aw, nuts!" When he told his commanders he didn’t know what answer to send, Lt. Col. Harry Kinnard said ‘That first crack you made would be hard to beat, General." Everyone laughed as a sergeant typed up the succinct response: "To the German Commander: Nuts! The American Commander."Between this stoic reply, Patton’s troops from the south, and a change in the weather that allowed air reinforcement the following day, the 101st was able to hold Bastogne. Their victory resulted in the first full-Division Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation. McAuliffe’s actions at Bastogne helped assure the final defeat of the Germans. Gen. McAuliffe continued to serve on active duty, including assignments as Head of the Army Chemical Corps, Commander, 7th Army, and Commander-In-Chief of the U.S. Army, Europe, until his 1956 retirement. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1975 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 

This is not my story, this is extracted directly from the internet. "Their story began in 1944, when the Army agreed to form the 555th Airborne Battalion, a unit of black paratroopers.
Like the Tuskegee Airmen, the 555th (or Triple Nickel) had to fight prejudice and foot-dragging from all sides. They took only the best, and other units wouldn't let their best transfer into it. Passive resistance by the Army kept it below full strength. The Battle of the Bulge came and went that winter in Europe while black soldiers chafed to get into the 555th. Only as the war wound down in the spring did the unit finally reach battalion strength.
But now the Japanese had unleashed their secret weapon. Balloon bombs rode the jet stream all the way from Japan and landed randomly across western America. The military couldn't hide that completely, but they shrouded most of it in secrecy. The bombs actually killed only six people. A woman and five children were fishing near Bly, Oregon, and they chanced to find one of the bombs. It exploded as they tried to figure out what it was.
The one place the bombs were effective was in starting forest fires. The Forest Service had just introduced smoke-jumping in 1939 and was still working out its techniques. In May, orders reached the 555th. The battalion was to be trimmed to a company of 160 men. Only the best of the best were chosen. They were sent, not to Europe, but secretly to Pendleton, Oregon. There they were to be retrained as smoke-jumpers.
Much was different. The military train to come down in open terrain. Smoke-jumpers expect to land in trees, and they train to lower themselves to the ground when they do. The Triple Nickel began jumping into fires in the Summer of '45. The Jim Crow mentality was still alive in Oregon, but the community of pilots and firefighters was color-blind. They were all in it together.
So the men of the 555th made twelve hundred individual jumps into fires. As they honed this embryonic firefighting technique, they suffered burns, broken bones, asphyxiation, and the first smoke-jumping fatality. Malvin Brown landed in a tree near Roseburg, Oregon (where I finished high school two years later), and he fell to his death. I worked on a road survey crew in the virgin Douglas fir that he'd died to protect. I remember those noble 200-foot trees, and I shudder at the idea of trying to descend on a rope from a parachute tangled in the top branches.
The Triple Nickel saga makes a powerful story of swords to plowshares. These were some of the least-known WW-II heroes, serving their country, unrecognized, under truly battlefield conditions, and doing it without firing a shot." 

This driveway in named the Avenue of Oaks and leads to the Boone Hall Plantation House. Boone Hall is America's oldest working plantation. Huge Spanish live oak trees line the half-mile entrance to the plantation, planted over 250 years ago by Captain Thomas Boone. Several films and motion pictures have been made on the estate, including the North and South television mini-series. The plantation estate includes a library, period antiques, and guided tours. A restaurant and gift shop are located in the cotton gin house.
Built in the early 1700s by Major John Boone, Boone Hall was originally part of a cotton plantation covering more than 17,000 acres. Two hundred years later, it was the world's largest pecan grove producer. The original estate house, cotton gin, slave cabins, smokehouse, formal gardens, and some of Charlestons' historic structures were built with brick and tile handmade on the plantation. Many of these buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


The nine original slave cabins along the Oak Avenue make up one of the very, few remaining"Slave Streets" in the Southeast. The proximity of the slave quarters along the road to The Big House and the expensive brick construction of the slave cabins indicates that Captain Thomas Boone was displaying his wealth and status to other planters as they rode up to the main house. At one time there were twenty-seven cabins, arranged in threegroups of nine cabins each. These quarters housed house servants, the elite within the plantationsystem. They also housed the skilled slaves that provided blacksmithing, carpentry, weavingsewing, cooking, and other skills that supported the plantation.On July 14, 1983, Boone Hall Plantation's nine original slave cabins, smokehouse and oak avenuewere listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hear the Gullah dialect of how the slaves communicated and lived in their community. Live presentations of singing old spiritual Negro hymns, prayers, chants, slave cuisine (which featured okra, yams, watermelon, and benne seeds) and how slave interacted on the plantation. 

I am thinking that some of you may not where we live when we are camping or what we do. Well, this is where we live. This is a 35" hitchhiker, by nu-wa. We pull it with a 2500 Chevy Silverado. Doug says, "Diesel duromax with a cummings engine......," now some of you know exactly what I just typed, I don't, I just repeat what I hear him say. So I am literally clueless about what that means. I do know it is very spacious and comfortable. It has all the amenities that our homes. Including washer & dryer. We really like it a lot. Now, this is what we do....well, it is what I do. What you see here is a slice of purple onion, red bell peppers and mushrooms on the grill. Doug would not eat this. His meal look more like a hunk of beef or pork.......He only like meat on the grill, I only like veggies on the grill. We cook out just about every day if the weather permits. We are still in Charleston, SC. Sometimes it is difficult fixing our meals at home because we are always out touring and seeing what we can see. So the latest agreement is that we would at least eat one meal at home. That seems to be working quite well. Neither Doug or I have missed any meals and I am sure you wouldn't say that, but I (Crystal) will. This is kina my food of choice, but not all the time, I can go very easily for days or weeks on end without eating any meat, I just need my fruits and veggies. But I couldn't pass up these jumbo shrimp. They were so inexpensive in the south and yes, I only got one pound and ate them all. I might have shared one or two with Doug. He would really rather have hunks of meat though. It seems to me that eating at home is always a little healthier out in restaurants; although there are times I crave something and have to have it NOW.... One thing I can say about these shrimp is that I have never purchased shrimp that I had to pull the head off myself. Usually when you buy them at the market, the head is already off. Well I had no problem. That process was as easy as nails. I mean......the heads had to come off, would I expect Doug to take the heads off? Uh, NO. That was a clear as mud. So I did it. No Problem. They were so good. Yum Yum. Butter, garlic, parsley, lemon, Um Um Um. I wish you could have been here, I would have shared with you. 

Today we visited the Home of the WWII Aircraft Carrier (Yorktown) at Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Uhhhhh, this was not my favorite, this is boy stuff. I did have fun though and learned quite a bit. Also I visited the Destroyer Laffey – The Submarine Clamagore – and Coast guard Cutter Ingham.This event took place at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum. Altogether, there were four ships-25 Aircraft Medal of Honor Museum Displays-Memorials and Exhibits.

Coast Guard Cutter Ingham: Ingham served with distinction during World War II on convoy duty. Protecting ships ferrying vital supplies to Great Britain, Ingham battled stormy weather, German U-Boats, and enemy aircraft. During one crossing Ingham engaged and sank the enemy submarine U-626. After 1944, Ingham served as an amphibious flagship. Ingham patrolled the waters surrounding Korea during the Korean War and earned a Presidential Unit Citation for her service during the Vietnam War. After the war the cutter returned to regular Coast Guard duties, serving until 1988, when she was decommissioned.

Destroyer Laffey: One tough destroyer. The first Laffey sunk at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942, the second Laffey was built by Bath Iron Works in Maine as a destroyer and commissioned February 8, 1944. After bombarding German beach defenses at Normandy on D-Day she cruised to the Pacific to participate in the liberation of the Philippines, the first carrier strikes on Tokyo, and the Iwa Jima and Okinawa landing operations. While escorting carriers off Okinawa in April 1945, the Laffey was assailed by 22 Japanese bombers and suicide kamikazes. Five kamikazes and three bombs hit her killing 32 and wounding 71 of her 336 men. They shot down eleven attackers and kept the Laffey afloat. She was decommissioned in 1975 after bombarding the North Korean coast in 1953 and later operating in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. 

Visit America’s newest and most unique major garden and wildlife preserve--hailed by experts and casual visitors alike as the "MUST" vacation experience in the Charleston area. You may agree with this country’s leading garden writer and photographer, Derek Fell, who wrote: "It is without doubt the most important new horticultural planting in North America today"; with Dr. Ellen Henke, known to thousands on national radio and television as "America’s Plant Doctor," who wrote: "It is a magical place!"; with Dr. John Creech, for fifteen years Director of the U. S. National Arboretum in Washington, who gave it abundant praise; or with many other experts who have enjoyed it. But much more important, we hope and believe that your reaction will parallel those of thousands like you who have largely proclaimed it the most outstanding experience of their trip.

The Audubon Swamp Garden rises from 60 acres of black water in a cypress and tupelo swamp on Magnolia Plantation. Its eerie beauty is home to scores of water-loving creatures: bird, mammal and reptile..yes, including alligators! This wild and otherwise accessible area is traversed by boardwalks, dikes and bridges to put the visitor in eye-to-eye contact with its inhabitants; and its natural horticultural beauty has been enhanced by hundreds of species of colorful, year-round blooming plants, both local and exotic, all planted with the taste that has made the 320-year-old historic garden of Magnolia Plantation world famous. Concealed benches enable nature lovers to observe the swamp areas without detection. From its thousands of visitors, only praise has been received. 

Georgia is one of America’s oldest and most interesting states. With a history as rich and varied as its people and geography, you are never far from discovering something exciting and new. The area was originally occupied by the native Creek and Cherokee Indians who had lived in the region for centuries. However, this changed in 1733, when Oglethorpe and other European settlers landed on what is now present-day Savannah. Soon thereafter, they colonized the area, looking to take advantage of the mild climate as well as the many abundant local resources.

Does he feel welcome or not? You tell me. Georgia isn't the only thing on his mind. And that is my wawter glass too!

Anyway the Atlanta area was originally inhabited by Cherokee and Creek Indians, and was named Standing Peachtree. In 1823, the area was opened to white settlement. It remained mostly forested until 1837, when the area was chosen as the southern "Terminus" of a railroad from Chattanooga. A local settlement called "Thrasherville" (near present-day Philips arena, home of the Atlanta Thrashers) was renamed "Terminus," and in 1843 the town was officially named "Marthasville," after the daughter of the governor of Georgia. The business community, however, was concerned that such a name wouldn't sell, and a new name, "Atlanta," was chosen in 1845 as much more marketable. Hence, from the start "Atlanta" began as a transportation hub and marketing center. The town was incorporated as the city of Atlanta in 1847, and by 1860 the population was 9,554.
This is my battle buddy (Donna) dating alllllllllllllllll the way back to 1981......Colorado Springs, CO. Donna and I also met up in Europe, I was in one location and she was in another....but we always manage to get together on the weekends. I remember my most favorite time with Donna and that is when we went to Austria??.....on a retreat. Relax Donna, I won't say anymore. It has been about 8 years....before now that I have seen Donna. Now she lives in the Atlanta, love you Donna.

Another good friend is Prudence, I haven't seen her since 1985/6....at Ft. Monmouth. Didn't get a chance to see her, but we did speak on the phone and are now emailing regularly, also hope to see her in TX this winter. 

King's historical importance was memorialized at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Justice, a research institute in Atlanta. Also in Atlanta is the Martin Luther King National Historic Site. These are some of Dr. Martin Luther King's artifacts: Clerical robe and stole, pictures hanging on the wall as well. This at the King museum. Very interesting place.







To lead the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King traveled thousands of miles and spent many days away from home. As a veteran traveler, he traveled light. This suitcase, which he took to Memphis on his last trip, contains many personal items characteristic of the man. Included are his appointment calendars, notes for speeches, lists of “things to do,” and two of the books he authorized which he used as reference for speeches. Also included are his personal toiletries, wash and wear shirts, pajamas – the minimum of items this busy man carried with him. Also displayed there were many artifacts from India because of his special relationship Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi. Dr. Martin Luther King, studied Ghandi’s life and works while in Theological college. Dr. King was influenced by the social philosopher and considered Ghandi as his mentor, because he dealt with social injustices, and economical concerns and political issues.





Dr. King's personal bible. I really like this bible, really looks as though he got alot of use from it.....tattered and ragged. How symbolic!






This is the key to Dr. King's hotel room that tragic night in the city and state of Memphis Tennessee.